


The Strength of His Hands

by fauxtales



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, KH3 spoilers, M/M, hand holding, post kh3, this is just sad i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:28:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26413414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fauxtales/pseuds/fauxtales
Summary: The first time Sora held Riku’s hand, he was four years old.
Relationships: Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 49





	The Strength of His Hands

The first time Sora held Riku’s hand, he was four years old.

There was a beautiful shell washed up on the beach and Sora just had to show Riku. Riku was his best friend after all! Sora shows Riku everything. So he took Riku’s hand in his and led his friend through the sand of the beach to the shell.

It was a bright, sunny day and the sky above them was a crystalline blue.

Sora held Riku’s hand many times when they were children, but such a gesture doesn’t mean all that much when you’re young. Children run around with hands clasped together as if nothing in the world could pull them apart and the connection that they maintain doesn’t have the weight of the world clasped within it. For most, it doesn’t. Sora and Riku never were “most people” though, and the strength of their hands ends up being more important than two kids on a small beach can possibly imagine.

The first time Sora held Riku’s hand with any sort of weight, he was fifteen years old.

They were on a beach again, but this one wasn’t nearly as inviting. The sky stretched on to the same eternity, but it was dark, a purple-black color that Sora was sure he had never seen in nature. It sucks up any and all light and presses down against the waves of the equally dark sea as if it could crush everyone beneath it.

Sora’s body ached in the aftermath of battle, and he was beginning to worry they would never see the sun again.

Riku was already settling into the darkness as if he truly believed the light would never come for them. Sora knew that Riku spent a long time in the Darkness, but it became all the more apparent as it wrapped around him, settling on Riku’s shoulders as if it owned him. Sora grabbed for Riku’s hand, scared of losing him to the shadows and scared of losing himself to the endless sky, and Riku looked at him as if his entire world had just condensed down to Sora himself.

The smile shared between them was shaky and scared, but Riku’s hand felt warm and safe in Sora’s.

They didn’t hold hands again after that.

Sora wanted to. He really did, but they just didn’t have time. Within days of getting out of the Realm of Darkness and safe on Destiny Islands, the King contacted them and they were drawn back out into the world to be the Keyblade’s chosen warriors.

Separated by the Mark of Mastery exam, then again by the war being waged on the worlds, Sora barely got to see Riku at all. They were caught up in the fighting, run ragged as the worlds seemed to be torn apart around them.

By the time everything was said and done, it was too late. Sora couldn’t get back. He couldn’t get back to Riku, couldn’t find his way out of the nothing he had found himself in, and all he could do was hope that Riku would find someone else’s hand to hold.

Riku deserved to have someone there to make him feel strong.

Sora wouldn’t be able to do that anymore.


End file.
